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How to Make Green Beer

Add a colorful touch to your St. Patrick's Day celebration by making green beer.

What's a St. Patrick's Day celebration without green beer? But just how do you make green beer? We did a little experimenting and came up with some simple tips.

What You'll Need

Liquid green food coloring
Beer
Glasses or mugs

Blue or Green Food Coloring?
We had heard that you can make green beer using either green food coloring or blue (since the blue, when mixed with the golden color of the beer, will turn green). We tried it both ways but preferred using green. We did get a nice green shade of beer with 2 drops of blue coloring, but we did not like the blueish tint of the foam.

Instructions:
Place 2 drops of green liquid food coloring in the bottom of a beer mug or glass. Add the beer. No stirring needed. Voila. Green beer. Two drops seemed to be the right amount to get a nice olive-green sort of color. Three drops resulted in more of a kelly green shade.

Dark Beer vs. Light Beer
We experimented with a light lager and a dark brown lager and got good results with each. Obviously, the darker beer was a slightly darker green, but it was still a nice olive green color. We used the same amount of food coloring (2 drops) for each, and got good results.

Tips:
Use liquid food coloring instead of the gel because the liquid will disperse into the beer instantly. Be careful with the food coloring. When you're adding it to the beer, it's easy to get some of it on your hands. It's water-soluble, but the green does linger on your fingers a while. It will probably stain tablecloths and clothing as well.

We did a bit of sampling to see if we could (1) taste the food coloring or (2) if it turned our lips green. No on both counts. We did not, however, test what the results might be after a whole evening of green beer drinking. Here's to the drinking of the green!